* Mr. Ngwenya is Secretary General of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa - COMESA
Synopsis
Taken alongside other recommendations, a coordinated approach will ensure that existent
measures can reinforce each other, allowing each
entity to maintain jurisdiction and shepherd its
own pieces of legislation through rigorous procedures in the U.S. Congress. Paralleling the wholeof-government approach in the Obama Trade and
Investment Strategy, this was designed to end
stove piping of individual executive agencies.
Additionally, save for the Fast Track - a politically contentious legislation that would ease the
way for new trade deals - the U.S., ostensibly, has
an uncluttered trade policy agenda for 2013, and
so, progress on AGOA renewal or enhancement,
could commence alongside a panoply of Congressional activity, and Administration effort to
spur the private sector into Africas opportunities.
TASP Prerequisites
Specifically, TASP seeks to grow the U.S. commercial footprint in Africa by enhancing AGOA
with the following types of measures:
A number of proposals geared towards improving U.S. - Africa relations have already been presented to both Congress and the Administration most recently Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del) prepared
a proposal, the Corporate Council on Africa just
published its list of 44 recommendations related
to trade and investment, and the Wilson Center
has a list of issues under official + unofficial review by both American and African stakeholders.
of African cotton.
5. A proposal that staff of the Minority Business Development Agency, (MBDA) and the Small
Business Administration (SBA) must receive training in special skills such as the agglomeration of
investments from SMEs, Minority and Diaspora
Investors.
This will allow entities considered small, inexperienced and under capitalized to access funding
from OPIC and Ex-Im Bank - opportunities largely
enjoyed by the big boys but out of the reach of
others.
3. Systematic Review of
Unilateral Actions
Such actions as withdrawing AGOA eligibility often have unnecessary negative implications for
innocent parties if they are not more targeted,
collectively applied + limited in scope.
Here, we do not suggest that objectives are misguided. Instead we opine that the U.S. is better
served if provisions were reviewed in light of the
non invasive actions applied in the Arab spring.
6. A Call on Congress to ensure that U.S. investors are shielded from Double Taxation + Arbitrary Expropriation. Here, USTR must negotiate
BITs with countries or groups of countries that
hold potential for profitable investment.
the sanctions also affected U.S. investors who were forced to cede
ground to Chinese investors - and all this had a negative effect on the
long term growth of a positive U.S. commercial footprint in that country.
2. Since US unilateralism applies to legislative vehicles beyond trade preferences, a special Congressional committee to review unilateral US
sanctions must be established to review conditionality.
We suggest that Congressional Trade Committees use the upcoming launch of T-TIP negotiations to raise concerns about EU tactics in the
timing of EPA negotiations with SSA countries.
The EU is threatening to withdraw preferential
access into its market from a number of SSA
countries if they refuse to enter into EPAs.
Such agreements not only undermine African
integrations goals but also place the U.S. +
other third country exports at a competitive
disadvantage in the fast growing African market.
3. A suggestion that where non-OECD countries offer absurdly low interest rates, sufficient
resources be used by the Ex-Im Bank itself, the
MCC, USAID and the USTDA to offset increased
servicing costs and provide support to American
firms doing business in Africa.
7. Special purpose vehicles (SPVs) must be reviewed in a bid to finance regional infrastructure.
Conclusion
The U.S. must comprehensively assess the commercial threat posed by the almost unlimited
funding China provides to support its Africa ventures. Secondly, if the U.S. does not effectively
challenge the mercantilist policies foisted by the
EU, America will not have the ready access to Africa it may desire in the near future.
Stephen Lande
Dennis Matanda
Stephen Lande
With a 50-year career in trade policy at State Department, at the USTR
and in the private sector, Stephen was pivotal to adding bilateral and plurilateral
elements to U.S. trade policy that had almost exclusively been multilateral and
based on the GATT. He was key to initiatives such as AGOA, CBI and GSP as well
as various US FTAs. He is President of Manchester Trade and also an adjunct professor at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
Contact him at stepland@aol.com
Dennis Matanda
A U.S. media enthusiast, national security and political party researcher,
he concurrently serves as editor & publisher of The Habari Network, and holds
post graduate qualifications in American Politics and Government. He has
consulted with the Africa Trade Insurance, a COMESA related export credit
agency based in Nairobi; with the PTA Re Insurance Agency, ZEPRE.
Hes finishing Master of the Sagging Cheeks, a work of political fiction.
Contact him at dmatanda@gmail.com